I recently played an original at a well attended open mic. This song contained a lot of the most intricate fingerstyle I've ever mastered. Before it was my turn I mentally went through all the questioning of WHY I voluntarily put myself in this position! I ended up following an awesome entertainer who used to tour with Gordon Lightfoot and who played lead guitar for years in the house band at Billy Bob's nightclub. I preferred to suffer a massive coronary right then and there to get out of playing. I sucked it up and played my song, convinced I had blown several phrases in the two fingerstyle solos it contained. I was dead certain my singing voice was doing nothing but conveying a massive amount of fear. There was a lot of applause when I finished which I thought were mercy applause to sooth my humiliation. Imagine my utter surprise when later that night I saw a video someone took of my performance and posted online. The fingerstyle solos were note perfect, both of them, and my singing voice was flawless all the way through. The person who posted it also added a comment I get a lot, "there's a definite Cash vibe when Dave sings". I was dumbfounded at how my fear had me convinced the song was a total train wreck. A professional recording engineer told me that even famous people he's worked with experience the same false impressions that tortured me that night. I guess the moral of the story is to forge ahead no matter what you're experiencing and just trust all the practice you've done to overcome the anxiety. That's easy for me to say but yet just a few days following this I skipped a jam session I said I'd be at because the anxiety was at an all time high. I kicked myself for that and committed to not doing it again. There HAS to be a point at which it gets easier, right?